REVIEW: Transformers: The Last KnightBy Quinn OxleyJune 22, 2017To modify a quote from The Office… when a child gets behind the wheel of a car and crashes into a tree, you don’t blame the child. You blame the audience that has paid to watch him do that four times already.

You guessed it - the world is reeling from a massive battle, but an even more massive one with higher stakes and more explosions is on the way if the Transformers and Cade Yaeger (whom we still care about, absolutely) don’t align themselves with an ancient order and save the day. And might an extremely contrived and ridiculous romantic subplot be in the works? (Spoiler alert: yes. Yes it is.)

I can’t pretend I’m not surprised, but it baffles me that I went in with low expectations and I was still disappointed.

Admittedly, Transformers: The Last Knight isn’t set up for me to enjoy it. I have so little tolerance for the Transformers movies. Once a movie hits the two-hour-and-ten-minute mark, my enjoyment decreases exponentially. Combine that with the fact that much of the two-and-a-half-hour runtime is mindless, incomprehensible action, and I’m already tapping my foot and checking the clock.

What completely dumbfounds me is that a movie with such a runtime devotes so little time to character development. You cannot - cannot - cannot make a two-and-a-half-hour movie and populate it with characters that I care nothing about. Sure, it’s a Transformers movie; it’s about the robots, right? Not in the fun way, no. The Autobots form the backdrop of the plot, but most of the time we’re following around the human characters and focusing on their affairs.

I have no idea, as well, why a movie with this runtime feels the need to rush through scene after scene to get to the long, drawn-out, nothing-burger action sequences. In the same movies, there are five-minute increments that have within them three or four scenes - enough jerking around to give you whiplash - and scenes that seem to continue on forever. There’s such a gross mismatch of pacing.

Let’s talk about the dialogue: it sucks. That’s all I really have to say.

Let’s talk about the acting: see above.

There were two or so actual laugh-out-loud moments, but one of them comes at the compromise of characters that were supposed to be intimidating.

I can’t do this to myself anymore. Life is too short. There are far too many films I could better spend my time watching. And three more films in this Hindenburg of a franchise have already been confirmed. There is, however, a glimmer of hope for the Autobots; Michael Bay has stepped down as director of the franchise for now. Ironically, he has said he would consider directing future installments if he found a good story (IMDb).

I’m going to cleanse this weekend by watching something decent. Maybe Inception. Anything, really, but this.

Rating: 2/10

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